Applying Causal Analysis to Equity Assessments

11-06-2023

Revisiting studies of racial disparities in NIH grant award rates, we motivate the use of a causal analysis framing to conduct social equity assessments of programs and design interventions. Our framing integrates quantitative data and lived experience to identify the root causes of disparities in a program and provides a data-supported pathway to rectifying them. Through our case study, we introduce cfairer, a MITRE Independent Research & Development-sponsored R package to support causal analysis of unfairness in program data.